Food and Fun at the State Fair!

Saturday, 9/7/2013 - My dad's bank was having a family event at the state fair for all members, so he was able to get free admission tickets for everyone, plus tickets to the rodeo, and a buffet lunch in the VIP tent. Since I wasn't sure what would be served, I packed a lunch for the girls and I to share to supplement any "safe" items we were able to find at the buffet and food vendors.

While you're here, you're gonna be stuck looking at a ton of pics of the girls at the fair, in addition to the food bit. I gotta throw a bone to the Grammas once in a while!

The buffet had gluten-free baked beans and a slaw salad thingie that I was able to eat, plus some BBQ pulled pork or chicken or something that was gluten-free as well. So the girls and I were able to tame the hungries between those and some veggies from my packed lunch box.
We tried watching the rodeo for a bit, but I was kind of horrified at what they were doing to the bulls and calves, so I leaped at the chance to get something to drink when Z complained she was thirsty. And then while I was gone, she got bored and asked to leave. Whew!

Right outside the VIP tent was the carousel. Hubby bought himself and Z unlimited ride pass bracelets, since she's a nut for the high slide thingie, and it's just more cost-effective to pay for unlimited rides than keep having to buy more tickets for my insatiable sensory-seeker!

The carousel operator let E go on with Dadda on his pass, since he would have been free had we bought tickets for her. Yay! Mama stayed on the side to take pictures. I don't do well on carousels. Or anything that spins. Or goes high. Or fast and upside-down... I like the sidelines just fine, thankyouverymuch.
So since we had the unlimited rides passes, they rode the carousel roughly eleventy-billion times.

Sadly, that was the only ride E was big enough to go on. Which made for a miserable afternoon for Mama!

Z wasn't tall enough for most of the rides either. While having lightweight little shawties makes it easier when I have to carry them, it's sure a pain in the beehive when there are height restricted activities! 

She did get to go on the jumbo slide (which drove E mad with jealousy!) and two different obstacle climby activity centers. And the "scary" dark-ride, which was inexplicably popular considering you waited in line until you were gnarled with old age, then whizzed through the whole thing in roughly 90-seconds. (I may be exaggerating a wee bit.) Z went on it last year and decided wasn't scary. So she liked it and went again this year. 

And again, I was left with a raging toddler. She is a daddy's girl, and chooses him over me whenever he's around (*fist pump!*) And of course she's madly in love with her big sister "Weewee." So seeing her two favorite people go off without her was more than she could bear. I gotta tell you, it is stinkin' adorable seeing a 20-month-old who is the size of a 9-month-old stomp around throwing tantrums. 

The Food

GF PBJ "fingers," Kosher salt (for the cucumbers - in monkey box;) organic carrots, cucumber, apples

 

The EasyLunchbox made the perfect lap-tray in the stroller for nibbles on-the-go, and the girls took turns holding it, depending on who was hungry. But Z is a clever girl, and quickly figured out that if she let E hold it, food could easily be reached from the front seat of the double stroller (no sun shade on the front seat of ours,) but hands and lap were left free for goofing around!

Tools of the Trade

   

[This post contains affiliate links.]

At last I saw some bungee trampoline thing off in the distance. E had been just exactly the right weight *wink wink* to do that at a previous event, so Z and I blazed off to see if this one would let the toddler participate too, before letting her actually see it. It had not been fun to hold her back to wait her turn the time she'd gotten to do it. I did not want to have to say "sorry, no" to my poor little baby one more time this trip!

On the way, we passed a zip-line ride. Only we'd apparently hit the cash-only zone, where you had to pay for rides from independent operators. Well. Z had gotten to go on a zip-line during one of her occupational therapy sessions and had loved it. So Mama forked over the green for her to go again. Not worth the $10, as she'd been so light she slowed down and had to be dragged along to the end. Bah!

But we found the bungee trampoline place, and to my delight, it was run by the same company as the one we'd done before. YES!

Z of course loved it, as always. A local mall had some of these before they shut down to remodel in that area, and she'd been jumping on them since she was 3. And was jumping higher and more squealery than the bigger kids!
She was so confident and excited about it this time that she even tried a flip for the first time!

When E had done this before during the Summer (what? She was 20 pounds... when her diaper was full...) the owner had had us wait for a specific operator who was good with the little kids. Since both girls had such a wild time, I ended up just giving them the rest of my cash and we kept going through the line. Each time E would go bonkers when Z would enter the enclosure to wait her turn, but if I let her in, she'd run off and try to climb on an active trampoline. So I had to hold her and hand her over the fence to the lady each time. She'd be in my arms roaring and screaming and caterwauling, and then this lady would come over and say "Do you want to jump?" and she would practically leap out of my arms to go with her.

So when she saw the same lady at this fair, she was instantly calmed. Enough that she got to wait in the enclosure with her sister, since she actually sat (mostly) patiently this time. Yay!

She had a blast. As I circled around to find better angles to take photos, I kept hearing other people talk about both my kids, being tiny and fearless and having such a blast! But my baby-sized toddler doing big-kid stuff grabbed most of the attention! (And, quite frankly, was a huge draw. If that baby could do it and laugh, it couldn't be that scary, right?)
Don't worry. My money wasn't wasted on her inability to actually jump. The lady would use the strap to kind of skip her like a rock back and forth across the surface of the trampoline, bouncing her higher and higher each time. She had the time of her tiny little life. Worth. Every. Penny!